A friend of mine died earlier in the week. One of Saint Louis' true house heads. When we think about black struggle, we often don't think of the people who are responsible for bringing us joy. For giving us the strength to go back and fight. More even than hip-hop, I think for a number of people born between say 1957 and 1987, house fulfilled that role.
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“House is our release, house is our sanctuary…can you feel it like I feel it?”
The quote above is taken from a track that I play every now and again. For those of us whose lives have been changed from exposure to house music, the quote captures a great deal. I am a father, a husband, a professor, a writer. But with the exception of the birth of my children, the closest I’ve come to God was on the dance floor.
When I moved to Saint Louis, I didn’t expect to find house here. Imagine my surprise when I stepped into a club on a Sunday night of all times, and found it. I’ve been trying to figure out exactly how the scene developed the way it did, again in Saint Louis of all places. Best I can figure there were a couple of influential DJs, some promoters, and some entrepreneurs who’d realized that there was money to be made in bringing house music into the Saint Louis club scene.
But at the center of it all are the house heads. The people who fill the clubs. The people who raise their hands. The people who know when a DJ is on…and when the DJ is off.
Tony was at the center of this group, acting as kind of a reverse black hole projecting light outward. Projecting love for the music, love for the culture, outward. As far as I can figure it for the last ten-thirteen years Tony (and Luan) have been bringing up a generation of club kids. Different races. Different nationalities. Different sexualities. Different classes. People grew up and found their mates through hanging out with Tony. They became connected through Tony and Luan.
Saint Louis is one of the most segregated cities in the country. In the end, that’s one of the reasons why I am sending this from Baltimore rather than being there in person. In Saint Louis it was often harder for me to get water from a rock than it was to find a place where people from different backgrounds could come together.
One of the only exceptions was the space I found Tony and Luan in the center of.
In paying respects to him, it is important to realize that he wasn’t perfect. Far from it. MAN, did he gossip!
And in the end while house and the culture that grew up around it offers us sanity, love, light, life…it can also take much. Then having taken, it often moves on…like the groove we ride on. While some of us realized this, Tony probably came to this conclusion when he didn’t have a great deal of time left.
I, along with many others, am sad for his family, for his fiancé, and for the people who truly knew and loved him. But at the same time I feel blessed that I was able to come into his circle, albeit briefly. We’ve all come into contact in one way or another with the darker spaces in Saint Louis. What house music BRINGS us, what Tony BROUGHT us was a little more light. I am hoping that people who were touched by him realize what that light meant, and share it themselves.
lkspence...
read "love saves the day" by tim lawrence
it gives a nice account of the loft parties in nyc...that's where it started. it's good to know that it's spread to st. louis. also mel cheren did an autobiography on his life and the garage...alot of stuff on the legendary larry levan!
there's an indie documentary on the dance scene in nyc focusing on The Loft and the Paradise Garage called "Maestro", and one coming out on the house scene in chicago called "The Usual Supects"...
i was honored and privileged to have lived in nyc and go to the loft and the paradise garage...you want to see dancers? go to nyc!
ain't nothing like dancin' to elevate the soul!
try and get to the shelter in nyc, if you haven't already... :)
Posted by: farout161 at February 24, 2005 05:58 PM